Faced with the glaring housing shortage, the federal government announced earlier this week, drawing inspiration from what it had done at the end of the Second World War, an accelerated construction program for standardized housing. The housing crisis is not new, even if today it is taking on the appearance of a catastrophe. According to CMHC, Canada lacks 3.5 million housing units to ensure affordability and accessibility. In Quebec, according to the same source, more than 600,000 are missing.
At the end of the war, at the dawn of a strong period of economic and demographic growth, simplified homes were mass-produced at low prices throughout Canada. What can we learn from this past experience? These houses have deeply left their mark on the social and urban landscape that we know today.
These constructions encouraged access to property at a time when the housing crisis was already present. In the history of Canada in general and that of Quebec in particular, the housing crisis appears, to varying degrees it is true, almost permanent. Montreal, long the metropolis of Canada, has long been a place of renters rather than owners.
In 1847, Montreal still had only 50,000 inhabitants. However, 68% of them rent their accommodation. In 1881, with a population almost tripling, this percentage of tenants rose to 85%. Outside of New York, this is one of the highest renter rates in North America. Not to mention that slums abound. With the Second World War, it was also necessary to find accommodation for the new employees of the arms industry who converged on the cities. So much so that when the conflict ended in 1945, even soldiers returning from the front struggled to find a place to leave their gear. Many soldiers are reduced to squatting.
Who will benefit from this?
To set the tone for his war-inspired initiative, Minister Sean Fraser, responsible for Housing in Justin Trudeau’s government, presented himself on December 12, holding in his hand a copy of the catalog of standardized houses proposed in 1954 to the population. He promised, for the coming year, after consultations, to offer Canadians a similar way of doing things. The federal offer would also include plans for multiplexes, student housing and seniors’ residences.
To reduce costs, the minister affirmed that the role of architects would be less important in these projects. “There will be fewer architect fees and it will speed up the process,” he said. In June 2023, with its Fund to Accelerate Housing Construction, the federal government already promised to “reduce administrative formalities”. Who will this really benefit?
This way of looking at construction is questionable to say the least, considers Lucie K Morisset, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Urban Heritage and professor in the Department of Urban and Tourism Studies at the School of Management Sciences. from UQAM. “It’s a bit like considering building roads without using engineers, or even having a cancer department in a hospital, but without a doctor, in order to reduce costs… If only because it there are laws in this country, obviously architects will be needed! Architects are the people we train with public money precisely to answer questions relating to housing and construction. Until proven otherwise, they are in principle the ones best trained to think about homes. »
For François Saillant, who is preparing to publish in January, with Écosociété editions, a history of the struggles for housing in Quebec, the measures risk mainly inspiring private developers and making them save money, without guaranteeing housing. for everyone. “Are we going to build lower quality housing just to save money? Circumventing laws, zoning regulations, all that, opens the door to building anything. »
A past as a guarantee of the future?
During the war, housing was built at breakneck speed, partly to house workers in the arms industry. These are small square-shaped dwellings that emerge quickly from the ground. The ground floor is accessed via a few steps. Under a sloping roof, the attic is habitable. Several of these cardboard houses, improved over the years, are now fetching high prices.
In House hunting, a short propaganda film produced by the NFB in 1943 on behalf of the Ministry of Munitions and Supplies, we see these houses growing at very high speed. The war effort caused, the narrative states, to see the population of cities suddenly grow by between 10 and 20%. Every evening, it is explained, thousands of workers leave the factories of the cities, “into the pale light of a sun masked by smoke”, without knowing where they will stay. Even before the war, it is said, “suitable housing was lacking”. And here are these houses, erected in just one day, presented as triumphs of the war effort.
“Between 1941 and 1947, Wartime Housing Limited [permis la construction d’]approximately 50,000 houses in Canada,” explains Professor Lucie K Morisset. This state company built a number of these residences itself. It also relies on local promoters. These adapt government plans, depending on the region, based on available materials and production costs. “A wide variety of homes were created from the same basic plans,” observes Professor Morisset. This urban planning will strongly impact the appearance of cities, from coast to coast.
Wartime Housing will evolve, over time, into an institution that citizens still know: the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). To this day, CMHC still encourages the acquisition of houses, even with a small down payment, an idea inherited from the aftermath of the Second World War.
Late again
Quebec has always been behind in housing development plans, says François Saillant. It has, most often, trailed the initiatives of the federal government.
“It should be noted that there was money and not just plans that came with the government’s war program to build houses,” he explains. He would like to add that the measure was also accompanied, until 1951, by methods to control the price of rents.
In his opinion, Quebec has long fallen behind in terms of housing for all. Aside from the Jeanne-Mance dwellings, built in 1957, an experiment in collective housing which led to the destruction of the district of Red Light in Montreal, it was not until 1968 that Quebec launched a public housing program. A first generation of low-rent housing (HLM) will see the light of day.
In 1973, Quebec began to finance housing cooperatives. “At the start of the 1990s, we had around 11% social housing. But it has fallen since the federal government withdrew from 1994. Today it is far below what we see in Europe and in several other countries, where it is often around 25%. »
A global federal strategy?
In 2015, during the election of Justin Trudeau’s first government, housing construction was one of the key election promises. Two years later, with fanfare, a National Housing Strategy was announced.
All levels of government combined, no less than 84 billion were to be devoted to housing in a decade. The progress reports communicated in the name of this Housing Strategy offer tables which show that the results are still far from meeting the needs.
There is a wide range of programs deployed under this big general tent. However, it is clear that “this strategy missed its target,” asserts François Saillant. Too little, too late, and by focusing essentially on the idea of promoting private property, he notes, we have reached a failure.